Ch 20: The Dream on fire from Curse of Lagdou is a great blend of objectives wrapped up in an under 10 turns ribbon. The objective of the map is to Escort 3 civilians. They come out of the inn in the top left one at a time every 2 turns and head towards the bottom right. Of course, 5 move pincushions aren’t well protected when the map is crawling with reinforcements and gorgon eggs that hatch over time if not taken care of. Reinforcements come from every angle, you push in and have to hold your ground. The non villager greens put up a fight but will go down sooner rather then later. So, you are encouraged to fan out initially, getting the villages and killing gorgon eggs, then are faced with the question. How do I end this map so I don’t get overwhelmed by enemies?
Rescue dropping the villagers to the bottom right is the bread and butter of this map. Ideally with the help of a flier or two, one guaranteed in Syrene being recruited on this map. The walls here can be flown over and in setting up a rescue chain it speeds up the map significantly. You have to play a balancing act between how much you commit to combat and positional movement. I’m no LTC wizard but I felt proud getting a 6 turn on this map last I played. Realistically you can hold out through the maps reinforcements and not ferry the villagers perfectly but the game set ups the opportunity for it and it’s simply just a great time. It rewards use of the rescue mechanic that I personally always find adds a lot of fun to maps for me.
Finally, I wont delve into the story because of spoilers but the title of the chapter is more then earned. Because it’s fire. Anyway go play Curse of Lagdou if you haven’t.